Frailty was independently associated with postoperative morbidity in patients having common ambulatory general surgery procedures (ie, hernia, breast, thyroid, or parathyroid), this study finds.

In this analysis of 140,828 patients in the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program, the relative risk of complications was increased in patients with two to three frailty traits, having more than two times the odds of serious complications.

Surgeons should consider frailty rather than chronological age when selecting patients for elective ambulatory surgery procedures, the researchers concluded.